The Color of Your Skin Ain't the Color of Your Heart

by Michael Phillips

  "It was sad, Mayme," she said. "All the green was gone and it was muddy everywhere. But at least the big rock hadn't gotten washed away. And everything will grow back."

  She sighed and smiled. "I was thinking on the way back to the house," she went on after a minute, "that if the water could change the landscape so much, what if it got into the cellar during the flood. So I thought we should look."

  We went into the parlor, pulled back the rug, and lifted the door in the floor.

  "Oh, we'll need a lantern," said Katie as she began to step down into the darkness. "Would you mind getting one from the kitchen?"

  A few minutes later we were standing down on the hard dirt of the cellar looking about. Nothing was changed. And except for a little wetness in two of the corners and along one of the walls, there was no sign of the flood.

  Katie glanced about. There wasn't much there, just the old chest where we'd found her uncle's clothes and a few pieces of old furniture with stuff heaped on it, an oak barrel for storing potatoes, several lanterns that looked like they were rusting, and some shelves with a few things piled on them.

  "It looks all right," said Katie. "At least the flood didn't ruin everything.-Maybe I should bring one of those lanterns up," she said, walking over toward where the furniture had been stored.

  She tried to pick up the largest of them, an old ornate oil lantern of brass with a huge round base.

  "Ugh!" she said. "It's too heavy!"

  "Do you want some help?" I asked.

  "No, we'll get it later if it turns out we need it." We climbed back up into the house and closed the door after us.

  The flood had come on us so suddenly in the middle of our picking cotton that we hadn't really had the chance to think or talk about what it might all mean. But I came on Katie one day in her papa's office sitting at the big desk of her mama's going through papers again.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  She looked up and smiled kind of sadly.

  "Just looking at all of this and seeing if I can make sense of it," she answered.

  "Can you?"

  "Not much. But with picking the cotton and everything, I'd been so excited about paying off that loan to Mr. Taylor that I hadn't really thought much about the second loan. With all the cotton I thought we were going to pick, especially with Henry's and Jeremiah's help, and with the money that's still in the bank, I wasn't even thinking about it or worried about it. But then the storm came and now there's not going to be any more money coming from anywhere.

  "Don't you think what we got will be enough?" I asked.

  "I don't know. The money left over from the first time wasn't enough. That's what Mr. Taylor said."

  "What about the cotton piled on the wagons in the barn?" I asked.

  "I don't know," said Katie. "But it's not as much as we picked the first time-before Henry and Jeremiah came. It's only two wagons and one of them isn't even full."

  "When should we take those wagons into town?"

  "I don't know. Maybe we should ask Henry."

  Next time Henry came out to check on us after Shenandoah County was starting to dry out, we did ask him. He said he'd try to find out how prices were and whether we ought to sell it now or keep it through the winter.

  "But what you worried 'bout money fo', Miz Kathleen?" he said.

  Katie glanced at me. I knew she was wondering how much to tell him.

  "Like I mentioned before, my mama had a loan at the bank," she said after hesitating a minute. "We paid part of it with the last cotton we picked. But I don't think there's enough to pay the rest. And I don't know how to get any more money.

  Henry nodded as he listened.

  "Yep," he said, "money's hard ter come by when you ain't got none, dat's fo' sho'. But dere's ways er gittin' it."

  "What ways?" asked Katie.

  "Same ways you got it afore=jes' takes a mite longer, dat's all."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, we cud plant dose fields er yers will mo cotton nex' year, an' den dat cotton'd grow up an' up an' we cud pick it jes' like you done las' time, an' wiff me an' Jeremiah helpin', I figger you cud git hit in afore nex' year's rain."

  "Could we ... could we really plant more!" asked Katie excitedly. "How, Henry ... when can we do it?"

  Henry chuckled. "Well, jes' hold on ter yerse'f, Miz Kathleen," he said. "First we gots ter plough up dat of groun' an' we cudn't do dat till spring. Den you'd hab ter spend some er las' year's money fer seed from Mr. Watson. Den we cud plant it all right. Might take us er while. We ain't got dat macheenrey like I seen McSimmons usin'. But we cud do hit all right."

  "When can we start!"

  "We gots ter wait till spring, Miz Kathleen."

  The minute Henry'd put the idea in Katie's head about planting and harvesting a new crop of cotton, her spirits rose and she couldn't wait for spring to come. Having that to look forward to made the fall and winter months go both faster and slower at the same time.

  We'd been together now, the five of us, for more than half a year and gradually we were running out of things. We had to spend some of Katie's money in the bank for flour and sugar and other food, though we had more milk and cheese than we could eat.

  We'd done some vegetable canning in the summer, but the flood destroyed what was left of the vegetable garden too. There were a lot of apples on the trees roundabout, so we went out picking and making and canning applesauce so we'd have it through the winter.

  Henry helped us plant a new batch of potatoes and sweet potatoes with cut-up pieces from what we still had left over in the root cellar. And of course we kept making cheese and churning butter. And we had plenty of eggs.

  Another thing we were running out of was meat. Katie mentioned this to Henry and his solution was simple enough.

  "You got enuff hogs out dere-we'll butcher one ob dem, an' maybe one er yer cows too an' smoke an' cure an' salt it an' you'll hab plenty er meat fer winter."

  "Ugh!" said Katie. "I don't think I could stand to watch."

  Henry laughed. "You'd rather starve dan kill some of hog! "

  "No, I don't suppose," said Katie. "It just sounds so horrible."

  Katie's squeamishness didn't stop Henry. The very next week he came out planning to butcher one of the hogs.

  "Do we have to watch, Uncle Henry?" asked Aleta.

  "No, chil', you don' hab ter watch me kill it," said Henry. "But you two older girls," he added, looking at me and Katie, "you's gwine hab ter help me lift it into da pot. So you jes' fill yer biggest tub plumb full an' git a good hot fire aneath it, 'cause we gots ter hab boilin' water ter git a good scald on dat dere pig. You take care ob da fire an' I'll take care ob da killin', an' we'll hab dat of hog sliced an' hangin' in yer smokehouse an' in dat brine barrel in no time."

  I was used to things like that, so I helped Henry most of the afternoon, and Aleta and Katie came and went as much as their stomachs could handle.

  Aleta was gradually warming up to Uncle Henry, as she called him now. She was starting to grow like a weed. So was William! He was getting chubby and round, and even Emma was putting on a little weight. She was calming down too. Whenever Henry came to visit, Emma followed him around like a puppy dog, like she had Katie earlier. Henry was so kind and tender to her. I doubt if a man had ever been so kind to her, and Emma drank it in. She'd have done anything for Henry. For all I knew, she'd hardly known her father. Henry was just about as gentle a man as I'd ever seen. As kind as he was to all of us, you could tell he had a special place in his heart for Emma and William. Maybe it was because he knew they had no one else. And as the months passed, he became the father she'd never had.

  Slowly the winter passed. There was more rain now and then, and it turned colder, but no more flooding.

  NE DAY A COUPLE WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, late in the day, Jeremiah came to call. It had been a warm day and sunny and everything smelled wet and warm and nice. Jeremiah was all cleaned up and he had a sheepish look on his face when he came to t
he door. I knew immediately that he hadn't come to help us with our chores.

  "How do, Miz Mayme," he said. "I thought ... uh, maybe you an' me could go fer a walk."

  I nodded and went outside with him.

  We walked away from the house. Dusk was settling in. A huge full moon was just rising over the trees. It was just about as nice an evening as I could imagine. It was quiet as we walked. Neither of us seemed to have anything to say. He glanced around a few times, almost like he thought somebody else might be around or watching us, though I don't know who it could have been because Katie and the others were all still inside. Then he seemed to settle down and took my hand and we just kept walking and walking till we were in the woods by Katie's secret place and the house was out of sight. I wanted to show him the little meadow and to see what it was like in the moonlight, though I didn't want to without Katie's permission.

  Gradually we started talking.

  "What you gonna do now dat yer free?" Jeremiah asked. "You gonna keep working fer Miz Katie? You gonna work fo' her forever?"

  "I don't know. I hadn't thought about it," I said. "But I could never leave Katie."

  "Why not?"

  "She's my friend."

  "But she's white."

  "She's like a sister to me. It doesn't matter what color she is."

  "Seems ter me it matters. Whites an' blacks is different, ain't they?"

  "Not down inside," I said. "Don't you figure if you could open us up, our hearts'd be the same color?"

  "I don't know. I reckon I never thought 'bout dat."

  "What about you?" I said. "What are you going to do?"

  "I'd like ter save a little money," said Jeremiah enthusiastically, "an' maybe git me a livery er my own someday."

  "That sounds like a fine idea, Jeremiah."

  "My daddy's happy enuff ter work fer Mr. Guiness," he went on. "It's all he knows. He's pleased enuff ter hab a job an' ter be a free black man. But now dat young folks like you an' me is free, maybe we can do eben more-jes' think, a black man owning something. Don't it jes' soup' right fine!" His voice was excited as he thought about it.

  "You can do it, Jeremiah," I said. "I know you will. But I'm not ambitious like that. Besides, I'm just a girl. Girls can't do things like that"

  "Why not? Maybe dey can ... someday."

  "Not colored girls."

  "Why not? You's free, ain't you?"

  "I reckon."

  "Ain't nobody can tell you what you can an' can't do. So don't dat mean you can do whatever you want?"

  "Maybe you're right. I just never thought about things like that before. Although Katie gave me twenty dollars an' that almost makes me feel like I could do anything."

  "Twenty dollars!" exclaimed Jeremiah. "Ob yer very own ... real money!"

  "Yep. It's in the bank in town with my own name on it.

  "Why, yer rich, Mayme!"

  I laughed. I guess it shows how used to Katie's kindness I'd already become.

  We walked on and finally turned around. It was pretty well dark by now. It was such a nice contented feeling walking along, with the moon shining down on us, hand in hand, knowing we were really free people. Was this how it had always been for white girls when they got to this age, meeting a boy and feeling things inside and then having him take your hand and treat you like you were special?

  I found myself thinking about my mama and wondering how it had been when she'd first met my papa and wondering if she'd fallen in love slowly like I thought I might be doing right now, or if she and he'd been brought together by Master McSimmons without any choice in the matter. I hoped my mama and daddy had been in love. I hoped I was a child of love. But since they were both dead, I reckoned I'd never know.

  But then Jeremiah's voice interrupted my thoughts, and his words were the last ones I'd expected to hear.

  "You ever think ... about gittin' married?" he asked after it had been quiet three or four minutes.

  I felt the heat immediately rising in my neck. I was glad it was dark.

  "I reckon," I said softly. "Doesn't everybody?" I suppose I had been thinking about it just then, since I'd been thinking about my mama and daddy.

  "But hit's different now, you know," Jeremiah went on. "Wiff no masters tellin' us what we gotta do. Now we can make up our own minds who to marry an' what we wants ter do."

  We were coming out of the woods now and into the clearing of fields and open space. The moon made everything glow a pale silver. I don't know what I'd have said, but I didn't have the chance.

  Suddenly we heard voices yelling.

  "There he is!" shouted a voice. You could tell it was white.

  "Look-he's got a nigger girl with him!" yelled another one. "Let's get them!"

  I felt Jeremiah's arm tense as he turned toward the shouts. It filled me with terror to know he was afraid.

  "Who is it!" I said.

  thought I'd got dem off my trail.-You run, Mayme. You ' Jes' some no goods dat follered me from town. I git back to da house an' you an' Miz Kathleen, you lock dem doors!"

  "But, Jeremiah, what about-"

  "You go, Mayme.-Go now!"

  Too afraid not to do what he said, I turned and ran for the house.

  "There she goes-after her!" shouted one of the white boys.

  I looked back. I saw them now, coming at us from the middle of the pasture next to the road. One of them tore off from the others toward me. I kept running as fast as I could, but he was a lot faster and in just a few seconds had nearly caught me. I screamed.

  Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark figure rush at him and knock him over, and they both thudded to the ground with grunts and sounds of fighting.

  "Why, you cussed nigger!" the white boy yelled in a fury. "I'll kill you for that if I-"

  But Jeremiah silenced him with a whack of his fist. I tried to keep running but couldn't help looking back. The others quickly caught up and knocked Jeremiah off their friend and started pounding and beating him something fierce.

  I felt my eyes getting hot and wet, but I knew I could do nothing to help him. I had to keep going. A few seconds later I ran into the kitchen.

  "They've got Jeremiah!" I cried. "Oh, Katie, there's some white boys out there and they're beating him up and I'm afraid they're going to kill him!"

  Katie was getting more and more gumption all the time, that was for sure. Sometimes she amazed me. This time she didn't even think twice about it. I had hardly got the words out when she ran into the parlor and came back holding one of her papa's shotguns. Now it was my frightened eyes that got wide.

  "Katie, he told me to lock the doors," I said. But she was walking straight to the door.

  "We're not going to let them kill him," she said.

  "But what if they-"

  "As long as I'm holding this, they're not going to hurt me," she said. "Mayme, go get me one of my daddy's hats out of the pantry while I'm loading this. Maybe they'll think I'm a man, or if nothing else my mama. I'm not going to let what happened to you happen to Jeremiah."

  Five seconds later she walked outside with as determined a look in her eyes as I'd ever seen, with one of her papa's big wide-brimmed hats flopping down over her face so you couldn't quite tell how old she was. She was wearing a long work dress, so I don't think anyone was going to mistake her for her daddy. But a woman could pull a trigger just as well as a man. I guess she'd fought hard enough by now to save Rosewood that she was starting to think like she was its master and mistress all in one. And I reckon she was!

  She walked out and along the road. It wasn't hard to tell where they were. She could hear the sounds of scuffling and swearing and fighting. She walked about halfway toward the commotion, then let the first barrel go. The sudden explosion brought the fight to an abrupt halt. There were only three of them. They stopped and looked up from where they were kicking and pounding on Jeremiah where he lay on the ground. Katie kept marching straight toward them.

  "All right, you've had your fun!" she yelled in
her Mrs. Clairborne voice. "Now get out of here before I use this again. If I have to go get my husband to see to you thugs, he won't be none too happy."

  "He's just a nigger, lady," said one of them, slowly climbing off Jeremiah's chest. "We was just having some fun."

  "Well, have your fun someplace else. Now get out of here!"

  Muttering and swearing, the three started wandering away.

  "You can move faster than that!" yelled Katie.

  They started running slowly in the direction of town. When they were about fifty yards away, I heard another shot. This time I think she was aiming at them because they started yelling like they were mad and scared all at once and tore off and were soon out of sight.

  I ran out to join Katie and we hurried to Jeremiah.

  He was lying on the ground moaning and groaning. He sounded bad.

  "Jeremiah ... Jeremiah," I said, kneeling down to him. "How bad is it?"

  "I's be all right," he moaned. "I think one ob my ribs is broken, but dat ain't too bad."

  "Can you stand up?"

  "I don't know ... I reckon."

  We helped him to his feet. Then holding on to both of us, with his arms around our shoulders and with Katie still lugging the shotgun, we got him to the house. Once we were inside, with the light from the lantern, I had to turn away. Jeremiah's face was bloody and swollen and I could tell he was hurting real bad. But Katie wasn't queasy and was already tending to him with a wet cloth. Of course Emma immediately went into a babbling fit. We washed him up as best we could and then got him to the couch in the parlor.

  "You're spending the night here, Jeremiah," said Katie. "You could never get back to town tonight. And I'm worried about those white boys. IT ride into town and get your daddy in the morning as soon as it's light."

  He didn't argue. We tried to get him to eat and drink something, but he was hurting too bad to eat and fell asleep soon after that.

  We did lock the doors, like he'd told us to, and Katie kept the gun loaded all night. But there was no more trouble.